Blog Archives
Understanding Grief and Giving Hope
Ghost Brother follows two brothers in the aftermath of a car crash that kills one and leaves the other to pick up the pieces of his life. What is it that draws you to write Young Adult fiction?
I love the YA genre. As a former high school English teacher and the mother of four sons, I have noticed that this age group doesn’t receive the same attention as young children. Reading is essential for all ages, but keeping readers interested and engaged during their teens is critical. I feel that more emphasis and attention need to be placed on junior high and high school students regarding their literary options. There needs to be encouragement from all of us for them to read books of their choice, where they can see themselves in the stories and read for enjoyment.
How were you able to capture the thoughts and feelings of Carlos, the twin who watches his brother move on without him?
When I lost my sister, it was so hard for me to understand and deal with the fact that she was gone. I would talk to my mom about messages I felt were from her. My mom was also feeling the same way. What I realized was that there were so many coincidences that made it clear that her spirit was still with us. I would talk to my mom about the story I had started working on about siblings. I found myself wanting more information and reading anything I could about losing someone. It brought me comfort. When my mom suddenly passed away, I felt I had to publish my book so that it would help others understand their grief of losing a loved one and give them hope that there is more beyond this life.
Can fans look forward to more books from you soon? What are you currently working on?
Reading and writing are my passions. I have many stories waiting to be shared with readers. I’m currently working on a manuscript that focuses on Selena, the girl that Cris falls in love with, in Ghost Brother. She is a strong, intelligent, and interesting female character. I wanted her to have a more active role, but didn’t want to take away from the brothers. I intend to tell her story from her perspective. She is gifted and can see and hear things others can’t. She was able to communicate with Carlos, the dead brother. Selena was misunderstood because she could do things others did not understand. She is now the main character in my new manuscript. I hope to complete her story later this year and will then start submitting in the hopes of getting it published
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Facebook | Webite
PHOENIXA: THE NEST, A Mystical Quest for the Cheng Legacy
J.J. Cheng’s Phoenixa: The Nest is an enchanting and emotionally rich journey through memory, heritage, and identity. It tells the story of Phoenixa, a spirited girl growing up in Beijing’s Cheng Courtyard during a turbulent time in China’s history. Blending myth with memory, Cheng ties the magical imagery of the Feng Huang, the Chinese phoenix, to the struggles and rebirth of her protagonist’s family. Through vivid storytelling, she bridges centuries of Chinese philosophy and Western narrative grace, crafting a novel that feels part myth, part memoir, and part historical reflection. It’s a lush, multi-layered story about roots, loss, and the unbreakable bond between generations.
Cheng’s writing is lyrical yet grounded, full of color and heart. The dialogue between Phoenixa and her grandfather glows with tenderness and wisdom, while the scenes of the Cultural Revolution sting with fear and sorrow. I found myself caught between awe and ache, drawn by the book’s rhythm like a song I didn’t want to end. Sometimes the prose wandered into philosophy, looping through abstract reflections, but even then, I stayed hooked. It wasn’t just about what happened, it was about what it meant. The ideas of reincarnation, ancestral duty, and peace after turmoil stayed with me long after I closed the last page.
There’s a personal courage in the way Cheng writes. You can feel the author wrestling with memory, with love for a homeland that both nurtured and wounded her. I admired how the author never rushed the emotions. It’s dense at times, poetic in a way that demands patience. But it rewards that patience with quiet beauty and truth. The illustrations throughout the book blend generational joy with cultural myth. The artist uses a loose, sketch-like style that is eye-catching.
I’d recommend Phoenixa: The Nest to readers who love lyrical storytelling and mythic realism. It’s perfect for those drawn to family sagas, Eastern philosophy, or stories that blur the line between dream and reality. If you enjoy books that make you feel something deep and unexpected, this one will stay with you. It’s not just a story about a girl, it’s a story about belonging, transformation, and the quiet magic of remembering who you are.
Pages: 538 | ISBN : 978-1956427059
Blaming the Victim
The Soul’s Reckoning follows a woman as she passes through the Barrier into a vivid, confusing, and emotional afterlife where she is forced to confront former relationships and truths she had avoided in life. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
After my brain injury, my relationships went into a downward spiral. I became acutely aware of the differences between communities and countries in how they handled social life with people who’d suffered catastrophic injuries or whose communication styles had changed. Some communities or countries focused on maintaining the relationship while adjusting to the challenging needs of the injured member. Others blamed the injured one and left. Yet Christianity, or the church, anyway, continually teaches that God will restore relationships.
Does that happen, I asked. I’d read the Book of Job years ago, which realistically portrays how friends mischaracterize suffering, blaming the victim. And it reveals what God thinks about all that. Several years ago, I wrote an ebook and a Psychology Today post on the Book of Job, including God’s perspective on Job’s friends. The book’s lessons remained in the back of my mind, and I married those lessons with my own and others’ experiences of relationships after brain injury.
I think too many put off trying to restore relationships, perhaps because they don’t want to confront the bad thoughts, bad words, and bad actions that had led them to abandoning their injured loved one. Then that person dies, and it’s too late. Or is it? And how do you reconcile with a dead person? That’s what I sought to answer.
Was there anything from your own life that you put into the characters in your novel?
As I was writing The Soul’s Reckoning, the character Shireen Anne popped up. It was rather surreal watching her name appear on the screen as I typed. It was like my past self, or a version of who I used to be, hopped into my story, declaring, “Here I am!” I wasn’t sure what to make of her appearance. But I couldn’t delete her. Turns out Charlotte Elisabeth, who isn’t anything like me, needed a friend and guide like Shireen Anne. She appears again in novel three.
What was one scene in the novel that you felt captured the morals and message you were trying to deliver to readers?
This is a tough question. My immediate inclination is to suggest the scene where Charlotte Elisabeth reconciles with her client. From the moment she decides that’s her next goal until she leaves.
Can you tell us where the book goes and where we’ll see the characters in the third book?
Book three of The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy follows Revelation’s storyline from the time just before the cataclysm to just after the Book of Life. I’d originally intended to go to the end of Revelation, but there is so much to explore and unpack in those metaphorical thousand years without Satan, governments, and elites, that I realized I had to end it at the Book of Life. I’m thinking I’ll write another trilogy to cover the last part of Revelation.
In the third book, titled The Soul’s Turning, the characters leave Heaven and return to Earth, either as resurrected beings or, in Charlotte Elisabeth’s case, in a specially created new physical body. She doesn’t lose her memory of her experiences in Heaven, yet she no longer exists as an energy being.
In The Soul’s Turning, she must learn who she is.
Like so many of us, she equates her identity with her job. But in order to avoid second death, she must let go of that myth and face herself and learn and accept alien concepts in order to unearth her created identity.
And she must do all this in a far-future world that’s experienced eight degrees of warming, whose population is divided by economic systems, without governments, and with The Reigners, a Council led by Jesus that ensures no elites can rise.
As she’s becoming comfortable with what she believes about herself and the world, the Accuser-Adversary is released, and Charlotte Elisabeth faces a final, deadly challenge that requires her to grow courageous insight she’s never had before or be obliterated in a galactic Lake of Fire.
Author Links: GoodReads | Bluesky | Website
In this powerful continuation of The Q’Zam’Ta Trilogy, the afterlife is not an ending but a crucible where souls are tested, relationships are stripped bare, and choices echo with eternal consequence.
The Soul’s Reckoning leads readers into a realm where mortality and eternity meet, where faith collides with doubt, and where the love that once brought comfort now demands sacrifice. Every step forward raises questions of loyalty, forgiveness, and the courage required to face the truth of one’s soul.
This Christian novel is more than a story of belief. It is a profound exploration of family dynamics, the complexities of Christian relationships, and the enduring power of friendship.
With lyrical prose and piercing insight, Shireen Anne Jeejeebhoy weaves the mystery of the afterlife with the raw struggles of human connection. The result is a moving book on the afterlife that illuminates the bonds that hold us together and the grace that can heal even the deepest wounds.
A novel for readers who seek Christian books that inspire, challenge, and linger in the heart, The Soul’s Reckoning invites you on a journey where every choice matters and redemption remains possible beyond this life.
Plunge into Charlotte Elisabeth’s reconciliation quest today.
The Escape
The Escape, by Eve M. Riley, is a contemporary romance that follows two people on opposite sides of the country each trying to outrun parts of their lives that no longer fit. Aiden, a brilliant but emotionally guarded tech founder, sells the company he built from nothing and suddenly faces a terrifying blank space where his purpose used to be. Emma, a razor-sharp New York lawyer, sees the ground shifting under her feet when a ruthless colleague threatens the career she’s spent fifteen years building. Both of them are pushed toward escape, but in ways they didn’t expect and aren’t fully prepared to admit to themselves.
Riley builds her characters from the inside out, and that pulled me in. Aiden’s interior world feels both ordered and cracked, like a glass that has been knocked but not shattered. His past in the Romanian orphanage, the tremor in his hands, and the way he tries to manage his life by managing objects on his desk. Those details land with quiet force. Emma, on the other hand, is all sharp lines and forward motion until you glimpse the exhaustion under her competence. Her scenes with her family, her sister, even the texts from her mother, felt so real I could practically hear the phone buzz. The author lets their defenses show without stripping them of dignity, which kept me rooting for both of them long before their paths crossed.
What surprised me most was how much the book explores the idea of identity inside a romance-driven plot. Aiden’s wealth doesn’t free him; it disorients him. Emma’s success doesn’t shield her; it isolates her. Both are accomplished adults who still feel like they’re standing in the wrong rooms of their own lives. The writing makes space for that confusion. Some moments are clipped and almost businesslike. Others slow down and stretch out, like the narrator is finally taking a breath. The shift in tone feels intentional. It mirrors the way big life changes often come in waves that don’t match each other. I liked that the book didn’t rush to soothe anything too quickly.
The Escape is a contemporary romance novel, but it leans into emotional excavation more than tropey spectacle. I’d recommend it to readers who enjoy character-driven stories with grown adults who are messy, thoughtful, competent, and a little lost. If you like romance that blends heart with personal reckoning, this one will land well.
Pages: 312 | ASIN : B0FG2Z4ZZC
The Shift Worker’s Paradox
R.E. Hengsterman’s The Shift Worker’s Paradox lays out a clear and unsettling picture of how shift work breaks down human biology, piece by piece. The book moves through personal stories, science, and practical guidance, weaving together research on circadian disruption, metabolism, hormones, and the daily realities of working against the clock. It explains how sleep loss, mistimed eating, and chronic stress grind away at the body over time. The tone blends clinical insight with lived experience, and the message is steady and stark. Working nights or rotating shifts has a cost, and that cost shows up everywhere from cognitive performance to metabolic health to emotional stability.
The writing is plainspoken, almost blunt at times, and that worked for me. I never felt lectured at. Instead, I felt nudged, reminded, and sometimes warned. The book mixes biology with stories of real people in a way that hits harder than any abstract health advice. I could feel the frustration in the author’s voice when describing tragedies on the drive home, and I could feel the weight of his decades in healthcare shaping every paragraph. Some chapters made me pause, especially the parts explaining how the body’s internal clocks fall out of sync. I knew shift work was rough, but I didn’t fully grasp how many systems it drags down at once.
What surprised me most was how personal the book becomes. When the author admits to his own struggles, the tone shifts from educational to intimate. It felt like someone pulling up a chair and telling the truth that usually gets swallowed in break rooms and morning commutes. The mix of scientific detail and emotional honesty felt unique. Shift workers aren’t dealing with one problem. They’re dealing with an entire stack of them, and the writing mirrors that tangled reality. I found myself moved, sometimes unsettled, and sometimes hopeful when the author talked about small changes that can help realign a life that’s drifting.
This book is a lifeline for nurses, factory workers, first responders, warehouse workers, and anyone else who trades daylight for survival. It’s also helpful for families who want to understand what their loved ones go through. I would recommend it to anyone who works outside a typical schedule or cares for someone who does. The book is honest, practical, and quietly compassionate, and it might be the first time some readers feel truly seen.
Pages: 394 | ASIN : B0G2SK9QDM
Sustained Courage
The Price of Nice lays out a sharp argument that our cultural obsession with being “nice” keeps us stuck in cycles of false comfort and stalled progress that preserves the status quo at home, in workplaces, and across society. What is the Think–Feel–Do–Revisit framework, and how does it help people break the cycle of niceness?
The Think–Feel–Do–Revisit framework was born out of my work in behavioral communications, not theory for theory’s sake, but years of studying how people actually change.
In my professional work, we borrow heavily from sociology, psychology, and behavioral science to answer very practical questions: What do people believe? What do they feel? Who do they trust? And how does that shape what they will do, and keep doing? We know that behavior doesn’t change just because information is correct or presented. It changes when beliefs and emotions are addressed first.
What clicked for me is that those same tools apply individually, especially when it comes to niceness.
When people stay “nice” in moments that require courage, it’s rarely because they don’t know better. It’s because of what they’re thinking, often unconscious stories about risk or belonging, and what they’re feeling, fear, obligation, loyalty, or discomfort. Those two things quietly determine what they do, usually nothing, and then the cycle repeats.
This framework helps interrupt that pattern. It gives people a way to name what’s happening internally before defaulting to silence. By revisiting the outcome, they build awareness and agency over time. That’s how mindset shifts stick. Not through one brave moment, but through understanding and practicing behavior change on purpose.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
One of the most important ideas I wanted to name is that niceness is not neutral.
Growing up and throughout my career, I was praised for being “easy,” “gracious,” and “not difficult.” But I realized those compliments often came up just as I was quietly absorbing harm. Niceness became a way for the system to stay comfortable while I paid the price.
I also wanted to challenge the idea that courage has to look loud or reckless. In the book, I introduce the idea of nerve as sustained courage. Not the big speech once, but the daily practice of choosing yourself, again and again, even when there’s pushback.
And finally, I wanted to make it clear that this isn’t about becoming harsh or cruel. It’s about replacing performative niceness with intentional kindness, the kind that takes action, tells the truth, and is willing to disrupt.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from The Price of Nice?
I hope readers walk away knowing that the discomfort they feel isn’t a personal failing. It’s often a signal that they’re outgrowing the rules they were given.
So many people, especially women and people of color, think they’re broken because being “nice” isn’t working anymore. What I want them to see is that their instincts are intact. They’re just bumping up against systems that rely on their silence.
If readers take away one thing, I hope it’s this: You’re not required to be palatable to be powerful. And choosing nerve doesn’t make you dangerous. It makes you daring.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram | TikTok | Bluesky | Amazon
“What’s wrong with nice?!” A simple and powerful question. It demands we interrogate the unspoken rules that shape our lives, often without our realizing it.
“It costs nothing to be nice!” What a travesty of logic. Niceness is not free—it comes at a steep price. It’s a velvet glove over an iron fist, stifling dissent, prioritizing comfort over progress, and conditioning us to accept the status quo. Niceness is one of the most insidious social constructs, keeping us compliant, silent, and complicit in inequity. If we don’t question it, we stay exactly where power wants us—agreeable, easy to manage, and stuck.
The Price of Nice is about breaking free. Amira Barger deconstructs our cultural obsession with niceness, exposes its hidden costs, and offers a practical framework for real change. With sharp analysis and personal insight, she helps readers disrupt the narratives that keep them stuck and reclaim their power.
Guided by four dimensions rooted in social psychology—think, feel, do, revisit—this book offers immediate, adaptable practices for creating change. Because breaking free isn’t only what you know—it’s what you do next.
If you’re tired of “good enough,” this book will challenge you, change you, and call you to more.
LITERARY TITAN 